Moshe Gorofsky

Moshe Gorofsky was a Russian Jewish immigrant to Dodge City, Kansas during the 1870s.

Biography
Moshe Gorofsky was born in the Russian Empire to a Jewish family. The husband of Zisha and the father of Laibel, Gearshon, and Semel, Moshe moved the family to the United States in 1876 after the Russian authorities forced the family from its home due to their faith, and they would find themselves harassed by anti-Semitic Dodge City residents on their arrival in Kansas. One day, Rouse Ruxton and his brothers Calvin and Homer rudely interrupted Moshe and Semel as they prayed at their camp, with Rouse knocking Moshe over with his horse before tying a lasso around Semel and dragging him. Semel's skull was fractured when he was dragged into rocks, and he later died from his wounds. Despite this, Moshe did not directly witness him being killed by the men, instead seeing his body; according to the Talmud, a person cannot accuse a person of a crime unless they personally saw them commit the crime. Therefore, he did not take any action against the murderers, even when Sheriff Matt Dillon and his deputy Festus Haggen visited the house to question the family. This angered Gearshon, who wanted revenge against his brother's killers; he attempted to beat them up in public (leading to him being beaten instead), and he even bought a shotgun and failed to kill the outlaws before being taken back to the Gorofsky home. Rouse then attempted to force the Gorofsky family to leave town at gunpoint, but Moshe said that they would not leave, standing firm. He told Rouse that he could go to Sheriff Dillon and turn himself in, and Calvin supported this, as he did not want to be hanged for murder. Ultimately, Gorofsky convinced Rouse and his brothers to turn themselves in, and he promised to testify to their story. This resolved the revenge issue, and the Gorofskys lived on without Semel.